Dorico 5.1.80 update released

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest maintenance update for Dorico Pro 5, Dorico Elements 5, Dorico SE 5, and Dorico for iPad, bringing them to version 5.1.80. This update brings improvements to the handling of VST plug-ins, and more than 40 bug fixes. Read on for all the details.

Update 16 January 2025: Dorico 5.1.80 introduced a regression that resulted in the mute buttons in the Mixer becoming non-functional. This has been corrected in Dorico 5.1.81, which was released today.

VST plug-in scanning

Dorico supports VST3 plug-ins (and retains support for legacy VST2.x plug-ins on Windows and on Macs with Intel processors), providing access to an almost limitless supply of instrument plug-ins and effects to enrich the playback of your projects. Plug-ins are shared components that can be loaded by compatible host applications on your system. When you first run Dorico after installation, and at certain other times – for example, when Dorico's audio engine has been updated to a new version, or when you install new plug-ins or updates to existing plug-ins – all the plug-ins on your computer are scanned during start-up.

Scanning plug-ins allows Dorico to find problems with plug-ins that cannot run. For example, some plug-ins might require specific hardware to be connected – perhaps a hardware key like an iLok to provide a license, or a specific hardware device like a keyboard from Native Instruments or an audio interface by Universal Audio. Other plug-ins might need to make connections to remote servers, either for licensing or to check what capabilities are available.

This can mean that it can take multiple seconds, or in rare cases even longer, to scan these plug-ins. If a plug-in is looking for a hardware key, for example, and it's not connected, it may hang for an indefinite period of time. If it is trying to connect to a remote server, and that server is unreachable for some reason, it may similarly hang. In previous versions of Dorico, this process was carried out without any feedback being shown to you as the application starts up. This could lead to frustration, because it could appear that Dorico was hanging during start-up.

Dorico 5.1.80 now displays the names of the plug-ins that are being scanned on the splash screen during start-up. This is very helpful, since it will allow you to see whether a specific plug-in is causing a delay during start-up. Dorico will also now only wait for a maximum of 30 seconds before it blocks an unresponsive plug-in, so that it won't be loaded again in future runs of the application.

We hope that these changes will be especially helpful to Dorico users who have many plug-ins installed on their computers, for whom plug-in scanning could take a long time and feel particularly unpredictable.

Other fixes

As usual, you can read about all the fixes and improvements in this update in the Dorico 5.1.80 Version History PDF. This update is focused primarily on bug fixes, and includes more than 45 fixes for problems reported by users in earlier versions.

Installing the update

Dorico 5.1.80 is a free update for existing Dorico Pro 5, Dorico Elements 5 and Dorico SE 5 users. If you are currently running Dorico Pro 4 or Dorico Elements 4 or earlier, you can buy an update to Dorico Pro 5 or Dorico Elements 5 from the Steinberg online shop.

Assuming you already have Dorico 5 installed, you can update to Dorico 5.1.80 free of charge. First, quit Dorico and any other Steinberg application that you are running on your computer. We recommend that you run Steinberg Download Assistant, which will automatically update Steinberg Activation Manager to the latest version, along with any other elements of the Steinberg run-time environment (including eLicenser Control Center, Steinberg Library Manager, and MediaBay) that may be outdated on your computer.

Once Steinberg Download Manager has finished updating any required components, go to My Product Downloads in the left-hand list, where you will find Dorico Pro 5, Dorico Elements 5, or Dorico SE 5, depending on which product you have installed. Select this, and on the right-hand side you will see Dorico 5.1.80 Application Installer. Click the Install button immediately to the right. This will download and run the Dorico 5.1.80 installer.

If for any reason you cannot use Steinberg Download Assistant, you can find all the installers you require here.

If you already have Dorico for iPad installed, it will probably update automatically, but if you need to update it manually, you can do so following these steps provided by Apple.

Reminder: eLicenser service ends soon

Before we wrap up this post, a reminder to users who are still on Dorico 3.5 or earlier, which rely on the old eLicenser technology for licensing: the eLicenser servers will be shut down this year. Once the eLicenser server is shut down, you will no longer be able to reactivate your Dorico license on a new computer, and nor will you be able to move your Dorico license from a Soft-eLicenser to a USB-eLicenser.

Furthermore, after the eLicenser server is shut down, you will no longer be able to simply buy an update to the latest version of Dorico in the Steinberg online shop, because the update process requires that the system checks your existing license.

We strongly recommend that you consider updating to the latest version of Dorico before the eLicenser service is shut down. For more information, please visit the Steinberg web site.

What’s next

In 2024, we released no fewer than nine free updates to Dorico 5 across macOS, Windows, and iPadOS, delivering not only hundreds of bug fixes but also significant improvements to MusicXML import, pitch before duration note input, Korean and Japanese text support, instrument changes, multi-bar rests, contextual help, user interface and workflow improvements. We were proud to get the initial version of our new Score Editor into the hands of Cubase users after several years of work. And, of course, we were delighted to be able to welcome tens of thousands former Finale users as new Dorico users, and to see Dorico taken up by hundreds more educational institutions around the world.

As we begin 2025, we hope to build on the success of last year and push on to greater heights. Work is well underway on the next major version of Dorico, which will be released this year, and the team is also working on further improvements to the new Dorico-powered Score Editor introduced in Cubase 14 last November – look out for news about this update in the coming weeks.

If you will be in Anaheim, CA for this year's NAMM Show, please come and find us at Yamaha's booth (#300DE) at the Anaheim Convention Center. My colleague John Barron will be in attendance and will be delighted to talk with you about Dorico and the year ahead.

In the meantime, we hope you will find the fixes and improvements in this update useful and that they will make Dorico even more enjoyable to use.